Airbus Wins Chinese Approval for 60-Plane Order Worth $8 Billion

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Airbus SAS won approval from China
for orders of 60 planes valued at $8 billion, including 18 A330
wide-bodies that had been on hold amid Chinese opposition to a
European Union proposal for tax carbon emissions.

China’s government gave its stamp of approval to the order
yesterday in signing a general terms agreement at a ceremony in
the presence of Chinese President Xi Jinping and French
President Francois Hollande, who is visiting for two days,
according to a statement by Airbus yesterday.

The order also includes 42 single-aisle aircraft in the
A320 series. The agreement signed yesterday will allow Airbus to
list in its backlog aircraft that may have already been the
subject of firm contracts but lacked the final government
backing required for Airbus to consider them certain.

Airbus had said during much of 2012 that it would be unable
to start building 45 A330s that were the subject of firm orders
from Chinese carriers because the Chinese government opposed EU
plans to charge for carbon emissions, and was refusing to
provide final confirmations for those aircraft.

The EU late last year backed down on its plan to tax
emissions.

The Chinese government’s China Aviation Supplies Holding
Co., which signed for the single-aisle planes yesterday, will
later “assign” them to carriers that need them. In some cases,
the aircraft will go to carriers that have already announced
specific orders. Some may go to airlines who hadn’t yet publicly
declared their intentions to add such planes to their fleets.

Order from China are different from those announced by
carriers elsewhere, in that a “firm order” isn’t sufficient to
get the plane into the order book because further confirmation
by the government is required.